As a revolutionary equipment in the sheet metal processing industry, the application of laser cutting machine undoubtedly promotes the rapid development of this industry. Compared with traditional shears, punches, flame cutting, plasma cutting and water cutting, what are the obvious advantages of laser cutting? Now let's make a collective appearance of all cutting equipment, which is better or worse at a glance.
Shearing machine
The biggest advantage of the shearing machine is its high cutting efficiency. The cutting distance of one knife can reach 4 meters. However, this kind of equipment can only cut along a straight line, so its use is greatly limited.
Punch
Punches are processed by punches. A punch can be equipped with multiple sets of punches of different shapes, and even customized punches according to processing requirements. Therefore, it can have more flexibility and repeatability for the processing of curves and complex shapes. This kind of processing equipment is often used in the chassis and cabinet industry.
However, the punch often performs poorly when processing steel plates with a thickness of more than 2mm and stainless steel plates with a thickness of more than 1.5mm, which is not only easy to cause surface defects of the workpiece, but also easy to damage the punch. In addition, although the customized punch can complete the processing task, the customization process itself is not easy, the development cycle is long, and the cost is high. Therefore, unless it is a mass and high profit processing activity, the customized punch may lose money.
flame cutting
Flame cutting is one of the most traditional cutting methods, but it still has its market today. Because this cutting equipment has low investment cost and can cope with the cutting of thicker steel plates, it has strong adaptability. Of course, flame cutting equipment also has its obvious shortcomings. First, the processing speed is slow, which will slow down the production progress; Second, the cutting seam is wide, which wastes materials; Third, the cutting quality is poor, and it is also prone to thermal deformation. Although the cutting quality can be remedied to a certain extent through the subsequent machining process, it will further slow down the processing speed.
Plasma cutting
Plasma cutting and fine plasma cutting can be regarded as the upgraded version of flame cutting. Its cutting speed and accuracy are much higher than flame cutting equipment, and are very close to laser cutting equipment. Therefore, it is widely used in the cutting of medium thickness metal plates. However, the thermal deformation caused by this equipment is too large, and the slope is not accurate enough, which cannot meet the requirements for parts cutting tasks with high accuracy requirements. In addition, some consumables in plasma cutting equipment, such as electrodes, nozzles and vortex rings, are expensive and expensive to use.
High pressure water cutting
High pressure water cutting is a process of cutting sheet metal with the help of carborundum doped in high-speed water jet. Its biggest advantage is that it has strong adaptability, and there are almost no restrictions on the materials to be cut. Whether it is metal materials such as iron and copper, or non-metallic materials such as ceramics and glass, it can be cut in this way. There is no need to worry about the bursting of the material when it meets heat, nor is there any need to worry about the reflectance of the material to light. Therefore, in terms of processing range, high-pressure water cutting is even better than laser cutting. And its cutting thickness can also reach more than 100 mm. However, the disadvantages of water cutting are also obvious. The slow cutting speed is on the one hand, and it is not clean and environmentally friendly enough, and the consumables are also relatively expensive.
laser cutting
Of course, the last one is our protagonist - laser cutting equipment. It has the advantages of high flexibility, fast cutting speed, high production efficiency and short production cycle. Not only that, laser cutting will not produce cutting force on the workpiece, so there will be no machining deformation, let alone tool wear; This cutting method has good material adaptability, and can be competent for various parts of different shapes, and the processing process is completed at one time; Laser cutting has extremely high precision, narrow weld and low surface roughness, so there is no need for subsequent "tool repair"; In addition, this processing method is simple to operate, with a high degree of automation. It will not cause pollution and is harmless to workers' health.
Based on the above advantages, the market prospect of laser cutting has been unanimously favored by experts and insiders. This technology will play an increasingly important role in the sheet metal processing industry in the future.